Mechanics that you want

[grandjackal]

Dance would be useless. Unless he could dance with himself...

Imagine if Seth had a Re-Move percentage like in FE5...

[CrashGordon94]

However I would like to see a Jeigan like Fin in the new game. I feel it would allow us to have a balanced, usable in an ordinary context unit who didn't break the game and wasn't all that abusable. However in general I would like to see a game with more terrain (like FERD) so that cavaliers don't dominate. Of course, then we have to contend with flying units dominating... But at least flying units have more exploitable weaknesses (bows). I feel like if Haar were still weak against bows it would make him much harder to use in several of the Part 3 chapters.

I can say that I agree with this.

[Thor Odinson]

Dance would be useless. Unless he could dance with himself...

Well it'd be a nice sight if he danced around his lance.//shot

Imagine if Seth had a Re-Move percentage like in FE5...

20 movement stars Seth, gogogo.

Edited November 13, 2011 by Luminescent Blade

[Momo]

Dance would be useless. Unless he could dance with himself...

He makes the person next to him give him a lap dance.

[Thor Odinson]

Stop making poor Lumi nosebleed

[Refa]

And I personally don't normally like that sort of thing unless it's limited to a particular part of the game or something. For example I think Seth makes FE8 less fun by existing as a PC.

Then don't use him.

But it's not a good way to make an SRPG.

I generally don't go for the "STRATEGY!" side a great deal because a lot of those type of ideas sound like total pains to me but making the whole thing a Jeigan curbstomp is really defeating the point of a Strategy RPG. That sort of thing is why I constantly whine whenever a Jeigan is any good past the early chapters, because having one character curbstomp it really isn't fun to me (or quite a number of other people, given how many people hate on Wolf/Sedgar and Sety for being broken).

Wolf/Sedgar being broken? You have to work for that. Same with Sety (well, parenting wise), and he joins pretty late on in the game. Anyways, stop complaining about how it involves less strategy, because these characters are crutches for people who aren't as good at these types of games. The only Jeigan characters who can curbstomp the game are in FE7,8, and...9 (I think that's the case there, but I've never done it myself), and that's only if you know what you're doing (e.g. know exactly where the enemy reinforcements and stuff, FoG, etc.). And just because you can do that doesn't mean it's necessary. FFIV isn't less of an RPG because you could grind Cecil to LV99 as soon as you start playing and beat everything easily (well, maybe after he turns Paladin, but that's besides the point).

That's not too great a problem, casual players don't often whore out the Jeigans as much as LTCers. I was really suggesting that to stop the latter group from liking them as much.

Jeigan ban? I mean seriously, that's more of a problem with drafts than it is with the games. And really, only Marcus (FE7), Seth, and Titania need to be banned (maybe barring a few of the harder early game maps).

Then I can't reason with you. Also, no matter how much you like it being able to easily curbstomp a game with a single member of the wide cast is OBJECTIVELY poor game design.

Well, I'm glad I don't play games for their arbritary OBJECTIVE game design value as dictated by CrashGordon, but rather for fun.

Edited November 14, 2011 by Refa

[CrashGordon94]

Then don't use him.

Not good enough.

Wolf/Sedgar being broken? You have to work for that. Same with Sety (well, parenting wise), and he joins pretty late on in the game.

Which is why I can stand them better than than Marcus/Seth/Titania. Well, I have some issues with Sety but it's more to do with FE and the Holy Weapons and stuff, perhaps he wasn't a good example since I don't personally hold broken units in FE4 to the same standard because it's a ridiculously broken game in general.

Anyways, stop complaining about how it involves less strategy, because these characters are crutches for people who aren't as good at these types of games.

And that's all I ever want them to be: crutches. I want them to be capable of nothing else BUT being crutches, just like Jeigan himself! (and aguably Arran, Evayle and FE6!Marcus, but those are more debatable than the J-man himself.)

[Mirron]

It'd be significantly harder to level Cecil to 99 in FFIV (or anyone to that level) at an early enough point where such a bonus would be worthwhile. Even 50 would be a stretch. Conversely, it's not as difficult for a Jeigan to be useful, because they're immediately useful. Not really going to get into the argument on Jeigans, since it's not something I care much about, but the analogy is a poor one.

[Snowy_One]

FF is usually pretty good about keeping people from becoming crutches/OPed though. The only times it happened that I can think of is in FFII and XII. II's warp spell is OPed since one cast can quickly remove about half the enemies from the field (not to mention how easy it is to level your stats up) and XII allows you to grind level 33 enemies easily early-on if you know how to use Immobilize well. However XII also makes enemies tough enough for level 99 to not matter so much and basically made all its bonus bosses expecting you to have maxed or almost maxed level (Zoridak is a ****ing pain in the ass no matter what level. Darkja can rot in hell! 33% insta-death chance SUCKS!)

[Refa]

It'd be significantly harder to level Cecil to 99 in FFIV (or anyone to that level) at an early enough point where such a bonus would be worthwhile. Even 50 would be a stretch. Conversely, it's not as difficult for a Jeigan to be useful, because they're immediately useful. Not really going to get into the argument on Jeigans, since it's not something I care much about, but the analogy is a poor one.

OK, it's like Easy Mode, just a better implemented one than the easy/normal/hard difficulty modes we get. It was a poor analogy, but this is what I was trying to say here.

And that's all I ever want them to be: crutches. I want them to be capable of nothing else BUT being crutches, just like Jeigan himself! (and aguably Arran, Evayle and FE6!Marcus, but those are more debatable than the J-man himself.)

The problem is finding the right balance between a crutch and a trap character who will be a complete waste of time. Evayle is great for people who are used to FE, even if you let her kill a lot of the enemies on the early maps, but that could completely screw over someone who wasn't as good at the game.

FF is usually pretty good about keeping people from becoming crutches/OPed though. The only times it happened that I can think of is in FFII and XII. II's warp spell is OPed since one cast can quickly remove about half the enemies from the field (not to mention how easy it is to level your stats up) and XII allows you to grind level 33 enemies easily early-on if you know how to use Immobilize well. However XII also makes enemies tough enough for level 99 to not matter so much and basically made all its bonus bosses expecting you to have maxed or almost maxed level (Zoridak is a ****ing pain in the ass no matter what level. Darkja can rot in hell! 33% insta-death chance SUCKS!)

True there. It's more about the abilities being overpowered rather than the characters in FF.

[Mirron]

Well, think level-wise, a better example would be someone who joins your team at level 50 at the start of the game. Usually, characters like that get dropped out of being playable, or have their levels dropped, things of that nature. But agree doing away with the early on support isn't a necessity, it's just one of those hard to balance things.

[Dark Sage]

That's not too great a problem, casual players don't often whore out the Jeigans as much as LTCers. I was really suggesting that to stop the latter group from liking them as much.

Yeah, how dare somebody likes a unit type you personally don't like! Let's ruin it for those people because clearly Crashgordon's preferences are more important!

[CrashGordon94]

The problem is finding the right balance between a crutch and a trap character who will be a complete waste of time. Evayle is great for people who are used to FE, even if you let her kill a lot of the enemies on the early maps, but that could completely screw over someone who wasn't as good at the game.

When in doubt make them the latter, it preserves game balance better that way.

[General Banzai]

I don't think the real problem here is Seth in FESS. In FESS there is that option to just "not use him" and it's a fairly easy option to take because most of the characters have stats which insure successful completion of the game. You really can compose a team of whoever you want and then beat the game; it's not all that difficult. The true problem here are games like FESD and FE12 where on the hardest difficulty it is heavily heavily heavily recommended to use certain characters to successfully beat the game. The discrepancy between characters is too strong; you have Wolf and Sedgar joining alongside Vyland.

In choosing not to use Seth you're not horribly crippling yourself. But in choosing not to use Wolf/Sedgar (or Barst, or whoever the fuck else is god tier) you're going to find yourself in an extremely difficult situation, so that saying "oh don't use Wolf and Sedgar" isn't always a feasible option for those who are not the absolute best FE players. I'm sure most of us speaking in this thread can beat FESS without Seth, but I'm not so certain on the amount that could beat H5 without FESD's respective overpowered characters. Certainly, of course, H5 is a more difficult mode than FESS HM, but cheaply so. A game's difficulty should not be primarily based on whether or not you use the "right" characters, but rather how you use what characters you do use. The game should be based on actual strategy and not knowledge of statistical facts. This goes back to my earlier point about why I find Thracia, FE7, FESS, and PoR balanced: No matter who you use (with of course a handful of exceptions, usually the very bottom or very top of the tier list), the difficulty of the game remains for the most part unchanged. Use Fiora instead of Florina? Tana instead of Vanessa? Halvan instead of Othin? Tormod instead of Soren? For these games tiers are typically based on "which unit comes first and is ergo useful for more chapters" and class/skill utility instead of pure statistical differences. In FESD/FE12/FE6/FE4 inherent statistical differences are far more important than class/skill utility. I think this is a less balanced approach to the way characters are distributed. If every character has more or less "good" or at least equivalent stats then it is not a matter of choosing the "right" characters instead of the "wrong" ones, but rather that some characters are simply more "right" than others. You can beat the game using Lute or Joshua or whoever rather than Seth and all it takes is a strategic shift and some slight difficulties early on. But choose to use Draug instead of Barst as your knight? Ha, ha, ha. Draug's immediately doubled by everything as soon as Ch 2 hits and his defense/HP is pitiful. He simply can't cut it. I'm sure somebody's determined some reclass strategy which can make Draug usable--but even so you're going to have consistent difficulties using him throughout the game and he can only be competent in support of stronger units.

Draug is a "wrong" unit. Someone without intimate knowledge of the invisible numbers in the game's coding, however, would have no way of knowing this--and thus in using him would unwittingly fall into a trap which would cripple them for the rest of the game. Someone playing FESS, though, could completely ignore Seth and use Gilliam and all sorts of low-tier units and they'd be worse off than what they would have been with Seth but not obscenely so.

Edited November 14, 2011 by General Banzai

[Dark Sage]

I don't think the real problem here is Seth in FESS. In FESS there is that option to just "not use him" and it's a fairly easy option to take because most of the characters have stats which insure successful completion of the game. You really can compose a team of whoever you want and then beat the game; it's not all that difficult. The true problem here are games like FESD and FE12 where on the hardest difficulty it is heavily heavily heavily recommended to use certain characters to successfully beat the game. The discrepancy between characters is too strong; you have Wolf and Sedgar joining alongside Vyland.

You're right. This is true in FE12 H3.

In choosing not to use Seth you're not horribly crippling yourself. But in choosing not to use Wolf/Sedgar (or Barst, or whoever the fuck else is god tier) you're going to find yourself in an extremely difficult situation, so that saying "oh don't use Wolf and Sedgar" isn't always a feasible option for those who are not the absolute best FE players. I'm sure most of us speaking in this thread can beat FESS without Seth, but I'm not so certain on the amount that could beat H5 without FESD's respective overpowered characters. Certainly, of course, H5 is a more difficult mode than FESS HM, but cheaply so. A game's difficulty should not be primarily based on whether or not you use the "right" characters, but rather how you use what characters you do use.

This seems like a mix of a tl;dr thinly veiled excuse to complain about tiers and whining about how some units are better than others basically. Plus I would hardly call not using Sedgar/Wolf "horribly crippling."

The game should be based on actual strategy and not knowledge of statistical facts.

Because knowledge of statistical facts can't play an important role in making an actual strategy amirite?

This goes back to my earlier point about why I find Thracia, FE7, FESS, and PoR balanced: No matter who you use (with of course a handful of exceptions, usually the very bottom or very top of the tier list), the difficulty of the game remains for the most part unchanged. Use Fiora instead of Florina? Tana instead of Vanessa? Halvan instead of Othin? Tormod instead of Soren? For these games tiers are typically based on "which unit comes first and is ergo useful for more chapters" and class/skill utility instead of pure statistical differences. In FESD/FE12/FE6/FE4 inherent statistical differences are far more important than class/skill utility.

You have no idea what you are talking about. Why do you think Dieck for example moved out of top tier? His class isn't that good due to a lack of horse, so not only is he a little borderline in his doubling, he has no extra utility besides combat. In FE4, skill utility is crucial to a unit's usability as well as class. That's why Pursuit and horses are so godly and units like Dew, Azel, and Arden are scrubs.

I think this is a less balanced approach to the way characters are distributed. If every character has more or less "good" or at least equivalent stats then it is not a matter of choosing the "right" characters instead of the "wrong" ones, but rather that some characters are simply more "right" than others. You can beat the game using Lute or Joshua or whoever rather than Seth and all it takes is a strategic shift and some slight difficulties early on.

If everyone has equivalent stats, then the gaps between certain units become more glaring. Mounted units will always be more useful than foot units because they can do rescue drops, ignore terrain, and have more move.

But choose to use Draug instead of Barst as your knight? Ha, ha, ha. Draug's immediately doubled by everything as soon as Ch 2 hits and his defense/HP is pitiful. He simply can't cut it.

Knight is a suck class anyway, especially for Draug. Anyway he simply has a difficult period there. He can be as good/better than Barst for the rest of the game.

I'm sure somebody's determined some reclass strategy which can make Draug usable--but even so you're going to have consistent difficulties using him throughout the game and he can only be competent in support of stronger units.

Draug is one of the best units in FEDS. I have no idea what you are talking about by saying using him is so difficult.

In addition, every unit in a game like FEDS can only be competent in support of strong/stronger units. Sedgar/Wolf wouldn't be so godly without support now would they.

Draug is a "wrong" unit.

No he isn't. Do some goddamn research.

Someone without intimate knowledge of the invisible numbers in the game's coding, however, would have no way of knowing this--and thus in using him would unwittingly fall into a trap which would cripple them for the rest of the game.

How crazy! Looking up stuff on the internet, or simply checking someone's speed base as you reclass them!

Such units like Draug require strategy to use properly, and I love units like that. Because it's a strategy game. Shouldn't you be in support of this? I remember how in the QUINTESSENCE DON'T UNDERSTAND TOPIC you claimed later FE games became more childish and that FE5's mechanics weren't, partly because they weren't explained in game. Yet you seem to be complaining that the game isn't telling you "this is how you use the unit at their best." Perhaps they should make it more childish for you?

Someone playing FESS, though, could completely ignore Seth and use Gilliam and all sorts of low-tier units and they'd be worse off than what they would have been with Seth but not obscenely so.

ZOMG FE8 IS THE BEST GAME EVAR!

Edited November 14, 2011 by Dark Sage

[Anouleth]

My attitude towards FE12 H3 and FE11 H5 is that it's okay for certain characters to be usable, even a majority of characters. There game modes are supposed to be aggressive and punishing with little or no room for error

[General Banzai]

DarkSage, understand that the tiers which are on this site have absolutely zero bearing on how these games are designed in terms of balance. The real reason Dieck moved out of top tier on this site's tier list is based purely on what a relatively small collection of fans determined when viewing unit skill through a highly specific lens determined by a highly specific playstyle neither encouraged nor even mentioned in the game itself. When I refer to "tiers" in my argument I do not simply refer to one single tier but the entire spectrum of FE tier lists across the history of the fandom (at least in America, which is all I am familiar with). Of course there are exceptions to my statement. For instance, the early days of FE tiering where Nino was considered an excellent unit and Marcus a poor one based solely on 20/20 stats goes against my claim that FE7 was tiered primarily based on class usability but the grand bulk of FE7 tier lists have considered Marcus, Lowen, Sain, Kent, and Matthew as the better units in the game because of the utility. Matthew in particular enjoyed a particularly long period of time as the best unit in the game because of the items one could only acquire by using him. Meanwhile, in general, Dieck, Lugh, Allen, and Rutger were considered the best units of FE6 for their extreme combat utility--statistically, they were considered superior by significant margins over many other units in the game and thus championed. In a game where statistical discrepancies run rampant, high stats are prized; in a game where stats are more or less similar, class utility and joining times become the primary basis for unit quality.

I didn't come here to argue tiers. I came to argue game design and in doing so I used examples and my examples are based on general perceptions of the Fire Emblem community as a whole and not solely restricted to this one site at this one moment in time.

Edited November 15, 2011 by General Banzai

[Vorena]

lol Darksage spazzing out

Also, using certain units and running into issues with them later on is simply part of the learning experience. If you play any of the FE games long enough and do you own little experimentation you can easily see that certain units might be wtf growths like Sedgar/wolf or certain units might suck at gaining stats without ever having to look up stats.

Edited November 15, 2011 by Eryth

[Dark Sage]

DarkSage, understand that the tiers which are on this site have absolutely zero bearing on how these games are designed in terms of balance. The real reason Dieck moved out of top tier on this site's tier list is based purely on what a relatively small collection of fans determined when viewing unit skill through a highly specific lens determined by a highly specific playstyle neither encouraged nor even mentioned in the game itself. When I refer to "tiers" in my argument I do not simply refer to one single tier but the entire spectrum of FE tier lists across the history of the fandom (at least in America, which is all I am familiar with). Of course there are exceptions to my statement. For instance, the early days of FE tiering where Nino was considered an excellent unit and Marcus a poor one based solely on 20/20 stats goes against my claim that FE7 was tiered primarily based on class usability but the grand bulk of FE7 tier lists have considered Marcus, Lowen, Sain, Kent, and Matthew as the better units in the game because of the utility. Matthew in particular enjoyed a particularly long period of time as the best unit in the game because of the items one could only acquire by using him. Meanwhile, in general, Dieck, Lugh, Allen, and Rutger were considered the best units of FE6 for their extreme combat utility--statistically, they were considered superior by significant margins over many other units in the game and thus championed. In a game where statistical discrepancies run rampant, high stats are prized; in a game where stats are more or less similar, class utility and joining times become the primary basis for unit quality.

I don't see what's wrong with that. You were bitching about the differences in statistical prowess between units and asserted that in FE11/FE12/FE4/FE6, stats are more important than utility in classes and skills. This is clearly a false statement, no matter how you justify it.

Not to mention I and other members of the community are pretty satisfied with how the balance has been in most of the recent FEs. Most units have their own distinct advantages when trained and can offer something in many types of playthroughs. Few units are truly unusable if you put in enough effort into them. Sure, some units are inevitably going to be worse than others, but that's what happens in all video games. It's just something you got to deal with.

(As an aside, Lugh only has extreme combat utiliy in like, Normal Mode.)

I didn't come here to argue tiers. I came to argue game design and in doing so I used examples and my examples are based on general perceptions of the Fire Emblem community as a whole and not solely restricted to this one site at this one moment in time.

In what universe is Draug considered a bad unit? Your examples were factually incorrect as usual. You chose to say that Draug was a bad unit in your example about "right and wrong units". Don't even pull the "what the general communitiy think" card. Nobody thinks that Draug is a bad unit. So why did you use him as an example? In fact why do you choose to use examples that do nothing that hurt your case? Maybe people wouldn't insult your intelligence or would respect you more if you didn't do such dumb stuff.

[General Banzai]

"Nobody thinks that Draug is a bad unit"

You would be surprised. You'd also be surprised at the huge volume of people who think Jeigan is a horrible unit despite what Dondon says to the contrary.

You just might not find them on this site.

[Othin]

Dark Sage, surely you can think of other characters that fit the examples just as well and substitute them, then look at the bigger picture, rather than whining about the examples and ignoring the substance of an argument.

[Anouleth]

What you're saying is that Draug is unacceptably bad, but I think that's true of other units as well. For example, Marty in FE5. A player might very well use him and completely waste his time on a character that grows terribly, and unless he uses some highly specific strategy where you dump a million scrolls onto him would end up "screwed". Or Ronan. Or Dalshien.

I don't think that Draug is qualitatively more of a "trap" character than someone like Marty or Wil or Rolf is. He's not totally unusable, he's just somewhat weaker than other units. It's not like deploying him causes an immediate game over.

DarkSage, understand that the tiers which are on this site have absolutely zero bearing on how these games are designed in terms of balance. The real reason Dieck moved out of top tier on this site's tier list is based purely on what a relatively small collection of fans determined when viewing unit skill through a highly specific lens determined by a highly specific playstyle neither encouraged nor even mentioned in the game itself.

The only common thread through every ranking system in Fire Emblem history is that they all include a ranking based on turncount. The game tells you how many turns you take. Taking additional turns causes certain Fire Emblems to withhold Gaiden chapters and BEXP. So I think that turncount is mentioned by the game.

Even if that weren't the case, turncount is still the best way to judge characters. The purpose of most Fire Emblem characters is to kill enemies. And I think everyone can agree that killing enemies faster is superior to killing them more slowly (or not at all).

[Dark Sage]

Dark Sage, surely you can think of other characters that fit the examples just as well and substitute them, then look at the bigger picture, rather than whining about the examples and ignoring the substance of an argument.

Maybe if his examples weren't bullshit, I wouldn't be "whining" about them.

I also responded to the substance of his argument, but I guess you can't see that since you're blinded by your fanboyism for General Banzai.

[Soanevalcke6]

I just hope this Game Stays at its roots and doesn't try to be like the awful Final Fantasy Tactics Ogre syle of SRPG and their mechanics, other than that I can't think of anything.

[Refa]

I just hope this Game Stays at its roots and doesn't try to be like the awful Final Fantasy Tactics Ogre syle of SRPG and their mechanics, other than that I can't think of anything.

...When has there ever been any indication of Fire Emblem being like Final Fantasy Tactics or Tactics Ogre? I'm inclined to believe that you're just venting out your hatred of the games here.

Edited November 15, 2011 by Refa